The present invention relates to computer generated graphical images. More particularly, the present invention relates to mesh editing systems.
Computer graphics are used in computer games, engineering and design, television and cinema, and similar applications where a computer-generated image is desired. Computer graphics can generally be two or three dimensional, but three-dimensional computer graphics, by providing height, width, and depth to an object, are especially useful in realistically modeling and rendering an object.
Commonly, computer graphics systems can comprise free form or scanned models that are stored in a computer as a mesh or lattice of interconnected triangles. Each triangle represents a different flat or planar surface on an object. The mesh can be manipulated or edited during editing operations by moving, rotating, and/or stretching the triangles. Examples of such operations include deformation, both large scale and detail editing, object merging, and smoothing.
Surfaces in computer graphics are often represented in global coordinate systems: explicit representations based on points or vertices typically described using absolute Euclidean coordinates. In contrast, implicit representations describe surface shape as the level set of a function defined in Euclidean space. Global coordinate systems can be useful in many operations. For local surface modeling, it is often desirable for the representation to capture the local shape or intrinsic geometry of the surface.
In the prior mesh editing systems, it has been challenging to perform merging operations of objects having dissimilar shapes and sizes. In particular, it is challenging to determine a merging curve based on correspondence of vertices on boundary curves of objects to be merged. Also, it is generally desirable in mesh editing systems for the operations to be user interactive, including object merging operations.
An improved method of editing meshes that addresses one, some or all of the problems associated with current mesh editing systems would have significant utility.